Test Results of Concrete Thermal

Doerte Laing
e-mail: doerte.laing@dlr.de
Dorothea Lehmann
Michael Fi
Institute of Technical Thermodynamics,
DLR-German Aerospace Center,
Pfaffenwaldring 38-40,
70569 Stuttgart, Germany
Carsten Bahl
Technical Department,
Ed. Zblin AG,
Albstadtweg 3,
70567 Stuttgart, Germany
Energy Storage for Parabolic
Trough Power Plants
Efficient energy storage is vital to the success of solar thermal power generation and
industrial waste heat recovery. A sensible heat storage system using concrete as the
storage material has been developed by the German building company Ed. Zblin AG
and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). A major focus was the cost reduction in the
heat exchanger and the high temperature concrete storage material. For live tests and
further improvements, a 20 m3 solid media storage test module connected to an electri-
cally heated thermal oil loop was built in Stuttgart. The design of the test module and the
test results are described in this paper. By the end of November 2008, the second gen-
eration solid media storage test module had accumulated five months of operation in the
temperature range between 300 C and 400 C and almost 100 thermal cycles with a
temperature difference of 40 K. The tests will be continued in 2009.
DOI: 10.1115/1.3197844
Keywords: thermal energy storage, concrete, sensible heat, parabolic trough power
plant

1 Introduction heat transfer fluid heats up the storage concrete. In discharging

In current parabolic trough power plant projects, the two-tank
molten salt storage technology is most commonly applied. How-
ever, this technology has the disadvantages of high freezing points
and high investment costs. The application of solid sensible heat
storage technology using concrete as the storage material is ex-
pected to be an attractive option regarding investment and main-
tenance costs. The German Aerospace Center successfully tested a
first concrete storage unit on the Plataforma Solar de Almeria in
Spain in 2003/2004 within a project funded by the German gov-
ernment 1. In a follow-up project, Ed. Zblin AG, Stuttgart,
Germany, one of the largest German building companies, joined
the concrete storage development and a major focus was directed
on cost reduction 2. The first test module built in this project was
damaged during the start-up phase caused by exceeding vapor
pressure as a result of insufficient permeability of the concrete.
Intensive effort has since been put into further development of the
storage concrete and storage design in order to optimize storage
capacity and thermal conductivity on one hand and to handle the
vapor pressure on the other hand. For demonstrating thermal stor-
age in concrete in a range of temperatures up to 400 C, a second
test module was designed. In doing so, the thermal layout and
construction details developed for a full scale storage unit were
used. Furthermore, methods of construction, heating-up process,
and instrumentation were tested.
2 Principles of Thermal Storage in Concrete
Thermal storage in concrete relies on sensible heat storage
where the stored thermal energy is defined by the heat capacity of
the concrete and the temperature difference between the charged
and discharged states. Concrete storage is a regenerative storage
concept where the storage module is cyclically passed through by
a hot and cold heat transfer fluid. A tubular heat exchanger with a
defined tube pitch is imbedded in the storage concrete for con-
ducting the heat transfer fluid Fig. 1. In charging mode, the hot
Contributed by the Solar Energy Engineering Division of ASME for publication
in the JOURNAL OF SOLAR ENERGY ENGINEERING. Manuscript received December 12,
2008; final manuscript received June 4, 2009; published online September 18, 2009.
Review conducted by Rainer Tamme.
mode, the cold heat transfer fluid flows through the concrete in
reverse direction and is heated up. During charging mode, the
outlet temperature of the storage rises while during discharging,
the outlet temperature of the storage decreases approximately lin-
early over time. The storage is fully charged when the temperature
of the heat transfer fluid leaving the storage exceeds the maximum
inlet temperature for the collector. The fully discharged state of
the storage is defined by the minimum inlet temperature accept-
able for the turbine.
3 Design and Construction of the Concrete Storage
Test Module
3.1 Design of the Test Module. The design parameters for
the test module were chosen in accordance to the typical boundary
conditions for a parabolic trough solar thermal power plant: the
design temperature is 400 C, the heat transfer fluid is thermal oil,
the design pressure is 25 bar, and the charging/discharging time is
6 h/6 h.
The concrete storage module is principally composed of a tube
register and a storage concrete Fig. 2. The tube register is used
for transporting and distributing the heat transfer medium while
sustaining the fluid pressure; the storage concrete stores the ther-
mal energy. By this division of the functions a durable and safe
construction is achieved.
The dimensions of the test module are as follows: total length is
10 m, length of storage concrete is 8.60 m, and height/width is
1.70 1.30 m2.
3.2 Tube Register. The tube register consists of 132 seamless
tubes with a length of 9 m and an outer diameter of 18 mm. The
tubes are arranged in a triangular pitch. To avoid possible leaks,
no joints were placed within the storage concrete. Collectors con-
sisting of flat plates and semishells are connected to the end of the
tubes. A free space is maintained between the front plates and the
front faces of the storage concrete to reduce constraints due to
temperature-induced differences in expansions. The tube register
was dimensioned as a pressure vessel according to relevant stan-
dards and recommendations. Nitrogen gas was used in place of

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 Fig. 1 Principle of thermal storage in concrete: charging mode
water for the pressure test to avoid having water vapor within the
oil circuit during the heating-up.
The tube register was prefabricated in the workshop, trans-
ported on site, and lifted onto the previously prepared foundation
by crane Fig. 3.
To prevent contamination of the surrounding soil with the heat
transfer oil in case of a leak, a steel trough had been placed under
the unit. Inside the trough, a pressure-resistant thermal insulation
30 cm FOAMGLAS had been installed.
3.3 Storage Concrete. Besides high thermal durability, the
storage concrete has to fulfill numerous requirements 1. For ex-
ample, a high heat capacity and thermal conductivity will reduce
the costs of the heat exchanger and thermal insulation. Further-
more, the concrete itself has to be economical and easily
workable.
During the first heating-up, the free water and a certain amount
of chemically bonded water evaporate. To avoid damage of the
storage module during heating-up due to excessive vapor pres-
sure, a focus was set to achieve a sufficient permeability of the
concrete.
For optimization of the mixture, a large number of material
Fig. 2 Storage module with visible tube register
Fig. 3 Lifting of the prefabricated tube register
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tests such as thermal cycling and strength tests with various kinds
of cements, aggregates, and admixtures had been carried out Fig.
4.
A special concrete mixture using fibers to improve permeability
was used for the storage test module. In Fig. 5, the finished test
module without thermal insulation can be seen. The module was
covered with 40 cm mineral wool for lateral and top thermal in-
sulation.
3.4 Instrumentation. To measure the thermal performance of
the test module and control the start-up process, the test module
was equipped with a number of temperature, flow, and vapor pres-
sure sensors. The oil temperature is determined by a pair of PT100
sensors near the oil inlet/outlet flanges on each side of the storage
module. The oil flow is measured using the differential pressure
principle. The temperature within the concrete is measured at four
cross sections of the test module MQ1MQ4, see Fig. 6. Each
measurement cross section is equipped with 20 thermocouples
type K, class 1 in equivalent positions. The core temperature
in a cross section is measured by a thermocouple located in the
Fig. 4 Concrete testing: probes for thermal cycling left and
strength test right
Fig. 5 Finished test module without thermal insulation
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 Fig. 6 Top view: arrangement of the temperature measurement cross sec-
tions lines and vapor pressure sensors squares

midpoint of a triangle formed by the most central tube and two of
its neighboring tubes; these sensors are named MQ1-6 6 4 to
MQ4-6 6 4. Special focus was directed to the measurement of
vapor pressure to control the start-up process. Capillary steel tubes
inside the concrete module MQ1-VP1, MQ3-VP1, and MQ3-
VP4, see Fig. 6 are used to connect the pressure tapping points to
pressure transducers outside the concrete.
4 Test Results
4.1 Start-Up Operation. When a concrete storage module is
heated from ambient temperature to 400 C for the first time, most
of the water contained in the concrete mixture is expelled. During
this process, water evaporates and builds up a vapor pressure
within the concrete. If the vapor pressure exceeds a critical value,
serious damage may occur. The storage test module was therefore
closely monitored during initial heating-up. In Fig. 7, the tempera-
ture of the thermal oil at the inlet/outlet Pt100 MQ1 and Pt100
MQ4 and the core temperature of the concrete in the cross sec-
tions near the hot end MQ1-6 6 4 and the cold end MQ4-6 charge process is stopped when the oil outlet temperature drops
6 4 of the storage module are plotted on the left axis and vapor
pressure on the right. Each increase in temperature is followed
with some delay by an increase in vapor pressure. The vapor
pressure reaches a peak and falls back to base level during an
extended hold time. When this point is reached, all the water that
can be mobilized at the current temperature has been expelled and
the next temperature step can be taken. This method allows for a
safe start-up operation.
4.2 Thermal Cycling Operation. By mid-May, the storage
test module had reached a concrete temperature of 400 C. To
determine the performance of the storage module various testing
programs like steady state cycles and accelerated cycles have
been applied. In the state cycles the module is operated with rela-
tively long charging/discharging times 24 h/24 h. Thus, thermal
equilibrium is reached toward the end of each step and each step
starts from a well defined state. This also eases comparison with
simulations because the concrete module does not need to be ini-
tialized with a temperature distribution. Experiments of this type
were carried out at various temperature levels, imitating the hot
end and the cold end of full scale storage. The accelerated cycle
program is performed to increase the number of cycles and to
determine dynamic behavior. Figure 8 shows an accelerated cy-
cling program of the test module where the storage is charged and
discharged with a 6 h frequency.
Typically, in a parabolic trough power plant thermal oil from
the collectors enters the hot end of the storage system at a tem-
perature of 390 C during charging. For a concrete storage system,
during discharging, the temperature of the thermal oil leaving the
hot end of the storage system decreases over time and the dis-
below 350 C 2, therefore, this section of the concrete storage
experiences a temperature difference of 40 K during a typical
charging/discharging cycle. So in this application, even though the
total temperature difference between charging inlet temperature of
390 C and discharging inlet temperature of 290 C is 100 K, each
cross section of the storage experiences a typical effective tem-
perature difference of only 40 K due to the boundary conditions
for the outlet temperatures and the performance characteristic of
the storage system. Therefore, the 40 K temperature difference
was chosen for the cycling programs.

Fig. 7 Initial heating-up period from April 2128 2008 with expulsion of water
from the concretetemperature of the thermal oil at the inlet/outlet Pt100
MQ1/Pt100 MQ4 and of concrete in the core of the storage module MQ16 6 4,
MQ46 6 4 on the left axis and vapor pressure on the right axis

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 Fig. 8 Accelerated cycling program of test module

4.3 Data Evaluation. By the end of November 2008, the con-
crete storage test module accumulated about 5 months of opera-
tion between 300 C and 400 C and almost 100 thermal cycles
with a temperature difference of 40 K.
4.3.1 Reference Cycles. Comparison of reference cycles from
the start of cycling and after about 100 cycles showed no degra-
dation in performance. In Fig. 9, the heat flow from the thermal
oil to the storage i.e., the power is plotted for three steady state
cycles. The plateau in the beginning of the cycles is due to the
power limit of the heating/cooling circuit. The charge cycles 26
and 29 are almost congruent. In cycle 96, the maximum trans-
ferred power is still the same as in cycles 26 and 29 and only the
heat flow outside the plateau region is slightly higher due to
higher thermal losses induced by lower ambient temperature in
November.
4.3.2 Determination of Specific Heat Capacity. The heat flow
between the thermal oil and the storage unit is calculated from the
measured quantities volume flow and temperature difference in
conjunction with the suppliers data for density and the specific
heat capacity of the oil:
= V c
Q Oil Oil Oil p,Oil TOil 1
When calculating the amount of heat stored into the concrete
module in the experiment, it has to be considered that during
charging a fraction of the heat transferred from the oil is lost to the
environment and only the remainder is stored in the module.
Analogously, during discharge the heat released from the concrete
is only partially transferred to the oil and in part dissipated into
the environment.

Fig. 9 Comparison of power measured in reference steady state cycles 24 h

charging from a storage temperature of 350 C to a storage temperature of
390 C

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Q thermophysical data of the concrete storage material that have
Oil, Charging = Q Storage + QLoss
Q Oil, Discharging =
Q
Storage QLoss
The amount of heat stored or released by the concrete module
during a certain charge or discharge time is the time integral over
the heat flow into or out of the module in that interval.
t t
QStorage, Charging = Q Storage =
0 0
t t
QStorage, Discharging = Q Storage =
0 0
For the steady state charging experiments in Fig. 9, the storage
unit was initially in thermal equilibrium at 350 C and a new
equilibrium was finally reached at 390 C T = 40 K. The
amount of heat transferred from the oil for reference cycle 29 is
739 kW h. Previous steady state measurements justify the as-
sumption of an average thermal loss of 10 kW. Subtracting this
yields the amount of heat stored in the concrete, which is
492 kW h, corresponding to 26.6 kW h / m3 or 0.66 kW h /
m3 K.
However, the heat flow into or out of the concrete is not directly
accessible to measurement due to the thermal losses. So a better
way to determine the amount of heat stored by the concrete from
experimental data is to calculate the time integral over the heat
flow between the thermal oil and the storage unit for both the
charge and the discharge process of a cycle. Under the condition
that the charging and discharging times are equal and ambient
temperatures are constant, the mean value of these yields the
amount of heat stored in the concrete without the need to quantify
the heat loss by measurement or by a separate calculation.
t t
1
Q Oil, Charging + Q Oil,
2 0 0 10%. Furthermore, the distribution of the heat losses occurring at
1
= QStorage + QLoss + QStorage QLoss
2
= QStorage
Half the difference between the amounts of heat transferred during
charge and discharge corresponds to the heat lost during a charge
or discharge process.
t t
1 and reasonable to build a single solid storage in this size for sev-
Q Oil, Charging Q Oil,
2 0 0
1 ule are limited, e.g., by the available length of the tubes, transport
= QStorage + QLoss QStorage + QLoss
2
= QLoss
According to this methodology, the data of the accelerated cycling
program shown in Fig. 8 have been analyzed to again determine
the specific storage capacity of the test module. In the charge
process of this program, an average of 354 kW h were transferred
from the thermal oil to the storage and 236 kW h were received
by the thermal oil during discharge. Thus 295 kW h were stored
in the module. In these tests, the mean difference between the
concrete temperatures in charged and in discharged state was 24
K, so the specific storage capacity for the concrete storage test
module is 0.66 kW h / m3 K.
These measured values are in close accordance to the calculated
value of the specific storage capacity of 0.64 kW h / m3 K. This
was determined from the volume of concrete, steel, and oil inside
the storage module and from the density and specific heat capacity
of the materials. So the test results support on a macroscale the
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and
been determined in microscale in laboratory tests before.
2 4.3.3 Storage Efficiency. The first law storage efficiency is
obviously dependent on the ratio between the heat loss and the
stored heat.
QLoss
1
Q QStorage
Storage = Oil, Discharging = 6
Q
Q
Oil Loss and QOil, Charging QLoss
1+
QStorage
For this test module, the ratio of surface area to storage volume is
+Q
Q very unfavorable compared to a full scale storage system. There-
Oil Loss 3
fore, the relatively low storage efficiency of approximately 67%
may not be confused with the storage efficiency of 9095% to be
expected in a power plant application.
4.4 Comparison of Simulation and Experiment. The ther-
mal behavior of the storage test module was modeled using the
object-oriented modeling language Modelica and the Dymola en-
vironment as described by Steinmann and Buschle 3. To com-
pare model and experiment as closely as possible, the fluid source
in the model temperature Toil high, sim was supplied with ex-
perimental data for the temperature of the thermal oil at the inlet
of the storage module Pt100 MQ1 and the volume flow. Heat
losses to the environment were applied to the module in form of a
temperature dependent function derived from steady state experi-
ments at various temperatures. The storage unit in the model was
initialized with the temperature measured in the experiment in
steady state conditions before switching into charging mode. Fig-
ure 10 compares some of the simulation results to the measured
values. The simulated oil temperature at the outlet of the storage
module Toil low, sim and the oil temperature measured in this
position Pt100 MQ4 are almost congruent. For the heat flow
between oil and storage unit, the difference between simulation
and measurement is more pronounced. However, deviations from
Discharging the measurement accuracy can lead up to variations in more than
the header plates and those occurring at the body of the module
may not be adequately described by the model.
4 5 Storage Design for Power Plants
For a 50 MWe parabolic trough solar thermal power plant of
the ANDASOL-type, using thermal oil as heat transfer fluid and a
desired overall storage capacity of 1100 MW hth, a concrete vol-
ume of approximately 50,000 m3 is required. It is not possible
Discharging eral reasons. Therefore, the storage will be built up modularly
from 252 basic storage modules. The dimensions of a basic mod-
sizes of components, and producibility. Preferable dimensions for
a basic storage module are shown in Fig. 11.
5 These basic storage modules are grouped together in series and
in parallel to form a storage unit. This storage unit with 63 basic
storage modules of about 400 tons each will be thermally insu-
lated in a single housing. For a full scale storage, four storage
units are connected Fig. 12. A concrete storage of that size re-
quires a ground surface of approximately 300 100 m2. For an
ANDASOL-type parabolic trough power plant in Spain the invest-
ment costs of the concrete storage system described above have
been estimated to approximately 38 Mio .
6 Conclusions and Outlook
With the successful start-up and thermal cycling operations of
the concrete storage test module, it is proven that concrete storage
technology is a suitable option for storing sensible heat. The tech-
nology is applicable for solar trough plants, industrial waste heat,
and combined heat and power systems. Due to the modular de-
NOVEMBER 2009, Vol. 131 / 041007-5
 Fig. 10 Comparison of simulation and experiment for a charging cycle
sign, concrete storage is scalable from kW h to GW h range. So
far, thermal storage in concrete has been tested and proven in the
temperature range up to 400 C. Currently the development is
being carried on toward 500 C. The expected storage capacity
has been approved by the experimental results. The developed
Fig. 11 Basic storage module
Fig. 12 Set-up of a 1100 MW h concrete storage from 252 ba-
sic storage modules
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simulation tool allows up-scaling of the system and the design of
concrete storage systems for commercial applications. As a refer-
ence for future commercial applications, a pilot concrete storage
with full scale modules is planned.
Another application for concrete storage is in conjunction with
parabolic trough plants with direct steam generation. These are
still being developed. In a storage system for the two-phase fluid
water/steam, concrete storage will be used for the sensible parts
preheating of water and superheating of steam, while for the two-
phase evaporation a phase change material storage will be em-
ployed. This technology is currently developed by DLR, Ed.
Zblin AG and Siemens AG within the project ITES, funded
partly by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Na-
ture Conservation, and Nuclear Safety 4.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank the German Federal Ministry
for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety for
the financial support given to the WANDA project Contract Nos.
16UM0030 and 16UM0023 and to the ITES project Contract
Nos. 03UM0064 and 03UM0065.
References
1 Laing, D., Steinmann, W.-D., Tamme, R., and Richter, C., 2006, Solid Media
Thermal Storage for Parabolic Trough Power Plants, Sol. Energy, 8010, pp.
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2 Laing, D., Steinmann, W.-D., Fi, M., Tamme, R., Brand, T., and Bahl, C.,
2008, Solid Media Thermal Storage Development and Analysis of Modular
Storage Operation Concepts for Parabolic Trough Power Plants, J. Sol. En-
ergy Eng., 1301, p. 011006.
3 Steinmann, W. D., and Buschle, J., 2005, Analysis of Thermal Storage Sys-
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www.modelica.org/events/Conference2005/online_proceedings/Session4/
Session4b1.pdf
4 Birnbaum, J., Eck, M., Fichtner, M., Hirsch, T., Lehmann, D., and Zimmer-
mann, G., 2008, A Direct Steam Generation Solar Power Plant With Inte-
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